


The Randy Dowager Quarterly

by DracoCustos



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mutilation, Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:34:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5896540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoCustos/pseuds/DracoCustos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collected fics I've written for the Dragon Age kink meme on Livejournal. Warnings, summaries, pairings, etc, will be posted in the notes before each chapter. PLEASE be sure to read them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Silence Not-So-Golden

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** torture, body mutilation, some non-con elements  
>  **Pairings:** Red Templars/Dorian, Cullen/Dorian (NOT part of the torture bit)  
>  **Prompt:** [Dorian gets his tongue cut out](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/14317.html?thread=54254573#t54254573)
> 
> I lost the muse for this one once the torture part was over, so there is no comfort pay-off, just hurt and a bit of dark humor. This chapter is also unbetad, as my usual beta has understandable issues with torture.

The blade was strangely hot against his skin as it slipped down the front of his shirt, dangerously close to his neck as it sliced downward, both his skin and his shirt splitting open; the Templars watching only chuckled. Samson’s sword bit in again to cut his shoulder and his sleeve, and Dorian felt armor clad hands haul him up off the floor while another pair pulled his ruined shirt off of him. “You could save yourself quite a lot of pain, magister—”

“Altus,” Dorian corrected him, and watched stars erupt in front of his blindfolded eyes when a fist collided with the side of his face. “Well,” he said as he spit out a mouthful of blood, “that was _rude_.” Another fist, this one into his groin, and while he managed to keep quiet, he couldn’t quite stop himself from doubling over in pain, the now cooling sword digging into his right bicep as he did.

“You just have to tell us where the Inquisition is hiding.” Samson trailed his thumb, skin starting to redden and crystalize from his constant exposure to the red lyrium, over the bloodstained edge of his sword, eying the blood before licking it away—the lyrium in his blood tasted more like water than the lyrium they’d been given recently. For a moment he considered giving him a swig of the red stuff, but thought better of it when it occurred to him he was a mage, and would benefit from the same power boost that his Templars had received. He decided he could have a taste of it in other ways instead. “No?

“Very well then, Pavus, have it your way.” Rather than allow his men to hit him again, Samson called up his long-ignored Templar abilities and hit him with a smite. Dorian couldn’t help himself, not with every inch of his body feeling like someone had shoved a million needles into it—he screamed. The Templars released him at a signal from Samson, and Dorian just slumped to the floor, the stone surprisingly cold against his bruising face. Another prickling sensation announced another smite, and in an effort to keep himself from screaming a second time, Dorian bit the inside of his cheek hard, spitting out a mouthful of blood when the pain subsided enough for him to breathe properly again.

Fingers fisted in his hair and pulled until he was kneeling, the smell of lyrium and rot making him want to vomit. “We’ll try again in a little while, hm? Be a good boy until then.”

Dorian spat in his face. Not a particularly dignified response, he knew, but one of the few available to him with his hands shackled behind his back. He regretted the action almost immediately, because rather than hitting or smiting him again, Samson shoved his tongue into his mouth, the rotten taste overpowering any trace of generally sweet tasting lyrium until Dorian really did vomit. “Have your fun,” Samson told his men as he shoved the mage down so his face rested in the pool of sick, “but you aren’t to move him from this spot. Clear?”

“Ser!” the Templars all snapped to attention as their commander left, bolting the door from the outside to ensure no one would leave the room without his permission.

“Now, mage,” one of them, tall and pale with an air about him that said he’d come from noble stock before becoming a Templar, “what are we going to do with you?”

“You could let me go, if you’re taking suggestions; I’m sure the Inquisition would send you a lovely fruit basket, or perhaps a nice bottle of wine? Lady Trevelyan is rather diplomatic about such things.”

“We certainly could, but you heard Knight-Commander Samson,” the Templar said with a chuckle as he knelt down to pull the blindfold from his eyes, “we aren’t to move you from this spot. Cut his trousers.”

A sword bit into his hip, and while Dorian’s eyes adjusted to the sudden light, the Templar walked around him to rip the fabric of his trousers the rest of the way open and peel both them and his boots off, adding them to the pile they’d thrown his shirt into. He thought about making some snappy comment about his ass, but the other two Templars moved to pin his shoulders down while the first forced his thighs apart, reaching between them to tie the cloth that’d been around his eyes around the base of his cock instead, making sure it was tight enough to cut off the blood flow before tying it around his sack as well. He gave him a sharp smack on the ass when he was finished, but made no move to either get up or to make any further use of him. “Truly sorry to have robbed you of the pleasure of ruining my smallclothes as well, they’re just so _inconvenient_ these days.”

“Fucking nobles… just shut the magister –”

“ _Altus_ ,” Dorian said, exasperated, before a heavy metal boot forced his arms up a little further towards his shoulders, and he couldn’t keep himself from wincing.

“—shut the damned blood mage up already, Aedan, before he has you dancing the remmigold in a dress for the Knight-Commander or some nonsense.”

“Come now, Garrett, everyone knows foreplay is important. Though if you have a better use for that delightful silver tongue of his, you’re more than welcome to get to it, I’m hardly going to stop you.”

The Templar called Garrett sneered at him, but shucked just enough of his armor to unlace the breeches underneath. “Haul him up,” he said, freeing his cock from his breeches as he walked around to face the mage when Aedan and the other Templar pulled him up to his knees. “Pretty little thing like you knows what to do with a big one of these, yeah?”

“Certainly—do you know anyone with a big one? I could show you.” A metal clad hand clamped down hard enough on the back of his head to daze him, pulling until he found himself with a mouthful of cock that tasted just as bad as the red lyrium smelled, so he did the first thing that came to mind: he bit down. Hard.

The other one, Aedan, smited him, and while he considered simply biting down harder out of spite, screaming won that battle, and he ended up screaming himself raw as a second, third, and even a fourth followed the first. “And to think we were going to make this enjoyable for you,” he said, his tone full of venom compared to the friendly way he’d spoken before. “Shove his trousers in his mouth, I’ve had enough out of him until Samson returns.”

Garrett waded up the remains of his trousers, pulled his head back at a sharp angle, and stuffed them none-too-gently into his mouth, only for Dorian to spit the wad of cloth back out without much effort. He bit him again when he shoved them back in, earning him a hard enough smack across the face that he could swear he felt something crack in his jaw, and was met with enough pain to confirm it when his jaw was pried open again to stuff his trousers the rest of the way in. “Let’s see you bite me now, you little shit,” Garrett sneered.

Aedan started to scold him, but instead he forced Dorian’s thighs apart to the point they started to ache, only adding to the pain in his knees and back from being stuck kneeling and face down on the floor for so long. “You have any poultices stashed anywhere? I have an idea.” Instead of asking for clarification, he just dug into a sack that’d been left in the corner, guarded by the third Templar who’d been left with them – armor long since glued to them thanks to the red crystals growing out of its skin – until he found a collection of elfroot poultices buried at the bottom, snagging two of them before leaving the rest of the bag lay. He could feel lyrium philters in the bag, too, but he didn’t need a topper, and Aedan seemed more interested in the poultices, so he left them be, tossing the little jars at him. “Get your sword, pin his other leg down.”

Dorian didn’t let the sentence finish. He tried to struggle to his feet, legs stiff from kneeling in the same position so long, but a boot came down between his shoulder blades to force him back down, and he still felt a sword sink into his left leg just above the ankle despite his efforts, passing through skin and muscle into the stone floor without touching the bones—he refused to believe anything other than the wad of cloth in his mouth had turned his scream into a pathetic sounding whimper. Garrett followed his example on the other leg, and they both smeared the wounds – top and bottom of the leg – with elfroot poultice, watching the bleeding slow and the skin begin to knit back together around the blades. The only positive was that he now knew for certain where their weapons were, and the one who’d so far only participated when ordered and had retreated at the first opportunity hadn’t seemed to be carrying one, so he was likely safe from anymore sword related damage, at the very least.

“Why didn’t you think of that sooner?” Garrett snapped, but Aedan only shrugged, giving one of Dorian’s ankles a kick and smirking when he whined.

“Point is, he’s not going anywhere, and since you fucked his face up, he can’t bite anymore.” He let Garrett puzzle that out while he went to search the bag himself, finding not only ten more poultices and four philters of lyrium, but a stoppered bottle that contained what smelled like deathroot extract but seared his skin to the bone when even a small drop slipped out of the bottle. He left the rest of the poultices and the philters where they were, but the mysterious bottle came with him, sure he’d find a use for it eventually; Garrett gave it a confused look, grinning when he saw the hole it’d burned into him as an idea already formed in his head for what they could do with it. “You going to stand there with your cock out all day?”

Garrett shoved him, but tucked his cock back into his trousers. “Be my luck he’d fucking bite me again. Give me that though,” he said and took the bottle, pulling one gauntlet off to dip one slightly crystalized finger into it. The mystery liquid hissed, but couldn’t manage to eat through the red lyrium on his skin, so he trailed it carefully over Dorian’s side instead, chuckling at the muffled screams as whatever it was burned a line of skin away. Dorian closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch them anymore, but one of them – he didn’t know or care who at this point – hit him hard in the back of the head, and he opened his eyes again to find a pair of fingers dipped in the potion dangerously close to them; he tried to lean back, but a pair of armored hands held him perfectly still while the potion-covered fingers just sat there, threatening but not actually touching him.

He closed his eyes again, but the hands holding his head moved enough to force them to open and stay that way; the fingers were closer, almost-but-not-quite touching, forcing him to hold his breath so he wouldn’t unintentionally touch the potion. Rather than doing it anyways, however, Garrett trailed his fingers down his cheeks instead, leaving little trails of potion that burned his skin behind while Dorian bit the inside of one of them to keep from making any more noise. Garrett dipped his fingers again, trailed them from just above his knee to the inside of his thigh near his groin until he whined in panic, the potion long gone before it got there, but that didn’t ease the moment of terror that would have had him wetting himself if it weren’t for the cloth tied tight around his cock. Fingers dipped back into the potion, and this time they did trail just over the head, not even the wad of clothing in his mouth enough to truly muffle his screaming.

Garrett started to dip his fingers back into the flask, but stopped when the door burst open again, Samson storming in with rage all but seeping out of him. “The little Trevelyan slut has her pets out looking for you already, Pavus,” he growled, grabbing a handful of Dorian’s hair and pulling until he was in as close to a standing position as the swords still pinning his ankles would allow before they started to bleed again. “Odd that she’d risk all of them just to find you. She must think you’ll talk, and she can’t have that—or maybe you’ve been paying lip service to her Maker. Must be a good way to make you stop talking.”

Samson stuffed his hand into his mouth to pull the cloth out of it, and for the first time in his life, Dorian wished he still had the gag reflex he’d trained away in his youth, if only so he could justify throwing up on his boots. “Last chance to tell us what we want to know, mage, so you’d best make it count.”

“Fuck you,” he managed to croak out despite the pain in his jaw at the mere thought of speaking. He was sure he’d regret it immediately if not sooner, but one last act of defiance felt nice.

“Wrong answer.” Samson released him, but hands grabbed him and held him up before he could crumple back to the floor, potion residue burning handprints into his biceps as they held him steady. What caught Dorian’s attention was the flash of a knife, however, just before his jaw was forced open and the knife dug into his tongue. Blood ran back into his throat, and (for just a moment) he hoped it would kill him, but before it could do more than choke him up for a minute, the knife was gone.

He forced his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to see it, but it didn’t help when fingers dripping with the mystery potion from the flask followed the knife, first into his mouth and then to his closed eyes, close enough he could feel a drop fall on his chest, but still not quite touching. He forced his eyes to open in some half-assed attempt to seem unintimidated.

“What’s the matter, mage? Don’t you want to see the look on your whore’s face when she finds you like this?” Dorian forced himself to watch in horror as Samson’s fingers got closer, but the potion only found its way into his left eye first. “Have it your way then,” he said and pressed the other finger into his other eye, both the potion and things he’d rather not think about running down his cheeks when they released him to fall to the floor. He barely noticed the way his bones jarred when they hit the stone this time, or the sound of the door closing and locking behind them as they left.

  


He wasn’t aware of the time that’d passed before he’d fallen asleep, or even that he had, as even the Fade was dark to him, and it hurt as badly as the waking world did—if not _worse_. Is this how the tranquil feel, he found himself wondering as it stayed dark, and silent, and cold, even the demons he’d expected to want to take advantage of his weakness avoiding him like he was some sort of plague carrier. He woke with a start when he became aware of another presence in the room—or he _thought_ he woke, because when his eyes shot open, the room was still there when he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it shouldn’t be. He never thought that would depress him as much as it did.

Once his eyes – mind? Dorian wasn’t sure anymore – adjusted to the sight, he saw the man there; handsome, in an odd, “I’m wearing feathered spaulders without even the slightest hint of being drunk” sort of way, but Dorian _knew_. The demons hadn’t chosen to leave him be, this one had just gotten to him first, and the rest had just… chosen to wait their turn, he decided, or been run off or slain by this one. He wasn’t sure what to make of the idea this demon, who willingly took the form of a human while in the Fade, being powerful enough to cow other demons into submission. “Finally let you sleep, did they?”

He knew what to think of the demon then—he was angry. “Now, now, there’s no reason to get upset at _me_. I just want to help you.”

Of course you do, he thought, bitter and angry and yet refusing to attempt to speak, even though he knew well the Fade didn’t care his body had suffered such grievous insults. “Don’t you want me to help you, Dorian? I can _fix_ you, after all, even make you _better_ , strong enough to murder every Templar in this keep with a single spell if you wanted. You just have to want it badly enough.”

Dorian remained silent, but refused to take his eyes off the demon. “But of course, where are my manners? You can call me Imshael.” Ah, Dorian thought, the demon the chevalier who’d pointed him this way had been hunting. He was going to murder that pompous Orleasian tit with his bare hands if he got out of this alive. Assuming, of course, that the Inquisition didn’t get to him first, but then what use was necromancy if you couldn’t use it to murder an already-murdered corpse at least once? He couldn’t think of a better use for magic right then. “Dear Michel still insists I’m a demon, does he? I don’t know what I’m going to do with that poor, delusional little boy.

“Perhaps Samson will bring him here once he’s finished with you.”

I’m still going to wring his neck, Dorian thought just as bitterly, and Imshael only chuckled at him. He was getting annoyed by the fact a demon could read his mind so easily. He was starting to miss being in so much pain he couldn’t think straight, and all at once, it returned; his eyes and mouth felt like someone had set them on fire, as did the places where the mystery potion had been trailed over his skin, and in comparison to that, the sword wounds on his chest, shoulder, and at his ankles were little more than a dull throb. “I can make it go away, Dorian, you know I can. Just say the word.”

He considered it—for one brief, horrifying moment, he truly _wanted_ to say yes, even though he knew what the demon was really asking. He even opened his mouth to say it, but before the thought could even fully form, he was jerked awake by a bucket of boiling water being thrown over him, followed by a bucket of what felt like snow, and the Fade was gone, leaving him with nothing but darkness and pain.

“I told you, demon, you can have him when we’re finished with him,” Samson’s voice said from somewhere, and Dorian simply tried to doze off again, only to be kept awake by someone kicking one of the swords keeping his legs pinned.

“If you insist,” the voice that had introduced itself as Imshael said. He could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “But you can’t keep him awake forever.” He listened as the footsteps receded, but as he felt himself trying to doze off again a second time, he was pulled back up to his knees, long past the point of agony from being on the cold stone for so long—he was getting far too old to spend his days kneeling on stone floors anymore.

“Remind me again why we’re working with a demon?” another voice spoke up, and this one he didn’t recognize, nor did he do anything more than just file it away as likely another Templar.

“Someone has to keep the people in the quarry from realizing they’ve eaten lyrium until they can’t do anything about it,” Samson responded in a way that sounded, at least to Dorian, like he was long past sick of answering that question. “Now Pavus, are you feeling a little more cooperative after your nap?”

“No,” he said, attempted to sound defiant, but the garbled way it came out only made them both laugh, and Dorian fell silent again rather than trying again. Lousy demon couldn’t have reacted even slightly faster?

“That’s too bad. You could have drawn us a map, been thrown out in the snow where your glowing whore and her disgrace of a Templar could find you.”

He didn’t react to the mention of Cullen, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he was proud of that, because they didn’t need anything else to hurt him with. But the fact he was out there looking for him strengthened his resolve enough that he put the demon’s offer from his mind, even managing to ignore the pain in his legs and back for a moment, though it crept back in faster than he’d have liked. Good job Pavus, he thought, not even sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

“Maybe they could have saved your life.”

Rather than be worried about the concept, Dorian snorted out a laugh, ignoring the way the action made nearly every part of his body hurt. He felt the now familiar tingle that announced a smite was coming and schooled his face to look bored, even after it hit him, because it barely registered over the pain he was already feeling.

“Not to spoil your fun, Samson,” Imshael’s voice spoke up from somewhere, and Dorian was surprised to find he hadn’t even heard him come back, “but there are hundreds of soldiers at your doorstep, all under the Inquisition’s colors.”

“Send the giants after them,” Samson growled in irritation, and Dorian heard him draw his sword.

“We did. The Trevelyan girl set them on fire. _All_ of them. With _lightning_.”

Atta girl, Dorian thought with a chuckle, earning himself a kick to his already sore groin for his trouble. He expected more pain, but before Samson could finish whatever he’d intended to do, a loud crash announced the gates of the keep had been breached, and even through layers of stone, the sounds of battle were unmistakable. “Go join the fight,” Samson said to the other, who left at a jog.

_Turn left_ , a voice said in the back of Dorian’s mind, and he complied without a thought—and the sword that’d been aimed for his heart hit one of his lungs instead. He choked as his breathing suddenly became more labored, but the mistake wasn’t fixed, and he could hear boots receding into the distance, though the sword was still stuck in his chest. He bent double enough that the hilt of the sword touched the ground, keeping it in place before it could get the bright idea to slide out; he wasn’t sure where he’d learned the idea that removing a blade would cause the bleeding to get worse, but somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought was there, and he’d have to remember to thank whoever it was that told him. He thought he heard footsteps coming back, or coming from another direction entirely, he wasn’t sure, but before he could even register that the door had been booted in, he was out cold again, not even aware of his weight pushing the sword in deeper.

  


“Sweet Andraste,” Inquisitor Trevelyan mumbled to herself when she stepped around Bull enough to see Dorian lying on the floor, only half aware of the sounds of a skull hitting stone and armor crumpling to the floor behind her. She turned to tell Bull to keep Cullen away from the door, only to find him slumped to the floor, unconscious with his helmet in his lap rather than on his head. “You realize you have to carry _both_ of them now, right?”

Bull just shrugged, so she left him standing in the doorway to kneel down beside Dorian, who groaned in pain but stayed blessedly unconscious when she reached down to feel for a pulse at his neck. She pulled a handful of potions, both healing and lyrium, from a sack and dumped one of each down his throat, massaging the muscles to force him to swallow. The swords had to come out. She couldn’t get him back to Skyhold with them in, not without a lot of time and potions they didn’t have, but blood started flowing when she pulled the first one from his left ankle, and she watched Bull’s hands press a wadded up shirt – Dorian’s, she noted with a wince – against the wound to staunch the bleeding. Before she could pull the second out, Bull handed her another wad of cloth she recognized as his trousers, and she pressed those against the other leg when that sword came out too. Others piled into the room after that, stepping over Cullen, and while Cassandra had the decency to be offended they’d knocked the commander out cold, she was also smart enough to realize why they’d done it the second her eyes fell on Dorian.

They had to sit him up to get the last one out once the first two wounds stopped bleeding, pressure, poultices, and potions helping stop the blood flow and, they hoped, knit his lung back together enough that he wouldn’t die before they got him to a proper healer topside. The sounds of battle had long since stopped, and since no one was shouting about needing to escape, she took that as a sign that the Inquisition had taken the keep, and there would be bodies to deal with. She just had to make sure Dorian’s wasn’t one of the.

It took five days of non-stop cleaning, burning, and other disposals to make Suledin Keep even remotely habitable, and Dorian stayed asleep for most of it with the help of potions and more than a little magic. Not a single healer tied to the Inquisition could identify the burns the mysterious potion had left on him, and as such, nothing could truly be done about them without harming him further; cutting away the burned patches of skin allowed them to be healed with potions and magic, though the healing was much slower than it had any right to be, and that still left the matter of what to do about his eyes and the damage to his mouth. Bull had suggested using a different acid to burn away the bits the potion had hurt, one they knew could be healed with magic, but the suggestion had been shot down immediately by the healers, who refused to risk a reaction they couldn’t fix.

“Cullen,” Trevelyan gestured to a room just down the hall from the one they’d put Dorian in, and waited for him to follow before closing the door behind them. “You do understand that we’re doing everything we can, yes?” He said nothing. “Are you still upset that I didn’t want you to see him when we found him?”

Silence. “Damn it, boy, you’d have gotten yourself killed trying to find the people responsible, and then where would we be? He’s going to need you when we stop forcing him to sleep. Or did you think no one noticed when your chess games moved from the garden to his quarters?”

He tried to fight the flush on his cheeks, but failed, and surprisingly, Trevelyan laughed at him. “It’s alright, you know, I’m glad he has someone to help him through this. Magic can’t fix this easily until we can find out what was in whatever they used to do it.”

“What did they do to him?” Cullen asked after a long moment.

“Cut him up a bit, cut out his tongue. Whatever they used to burn him doesn’t react to elfroot, so we had to cut him up more to heal… most… of him. There were burns on his genitals.” She watched him go pale, but shook her head at him. “There’s no evidence they did anything to him, just tied him off and burned him a bit. One of the Templars who surrendered instead of dying says he bit one of them for trying anything else.”

Cullen started to say something, but a tap at the door stopped him, one of the healers peeking in with a sheepish look on her face. “I thought you’d like to know Serah Pavus is awake, Your Worship.”

“Yes, thank you. Can you clear everyone else out for me? The commander and I need to speak to him alone,” the healer nodded and left, and Trevelyan gave Cullen a firm pat on the back. “Come on then, I’m sure he’ll be as happy to see you as you will be to see him.”

Dorian was sitting up in bed when they got there, everyone else having been cleared out except for one healer, who agreed to wait outside the door, but no further. A rag soaked in elfroot poultice had been bound around his eyes, giving them time to heal as best they could without having to take a knife and carve out the rest of his eyes to heal the properly—no one else had wanted to be the one responsible if it’d ended up blinding him permanently, and they’d adamantly refused to allow her to do it herself. The sword wounds on his legs had healed nicely, though they would need more time to heal completely, and it was likely he’d walk with a limp for a while, possibly forever. “Dorian…” Cullen mumbled, and watched as he tensed for a moment, then relaxed. Inquisitor Trevelyan stepped aside rather than force Cullen to shove her – and Maker knew the hand on her arm had been forceful enough that if she hadn’t, he’d have done exactly that – letting them have their moment, however brief and limited it had to be for the moment, before clearing her throat to remind them both they weren’t alone.

“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this,” and she truly was sorry, even though she’d threatened anyone who tried to take the burden on themselves with treason against whatever crown would give her the right, “but we can’t fix this… not completely. None of the people who surrendered know what the stuff they used on you is. They claim the demon gave it to them.”

Dorian flinched, squeezing Cullen’s hand a little tighter. “Dorian, I need you to tell me why we didn’t find a demon,” she insisted, and this time she watched Cullen flinch, turning an angry glare on her that she ignored. “Did you make a deal with it?”

He shook his head, and she let that be enough for now. “Will you be alright with letting Solas speak to you in the Fade to get some answers?” He nodded, and she let that be enough of an answer too. “Alright. Welcome back, Dorian, for what it’s worth in your current state.”

And with that, she left, leaving Cullen there and ordering the healer to remain outside for a little bit longer, and he complied even while he insisted it was a bad idea to leave his patient alone with someone who couldn’t tell elfroot from deathroot—Dorian nearly choked himself on spit laughing at Cullen’s indignant recital of the identifying features of both plants.

“Healers,” he grumbled, still holding Dorian’s hand like he’d vanish if he let go, even when he put his head down on the sheets beside his hip. He stayed that way for a long moment, only looking up when he felt the bed shift, watching Dorian pat the now empty space beside him with a smile. Cullen let go of his hand just long enough to shuck his armor, slipping into the bed with him so he could curl up against his side. It didn’t occur to Cullen until he was drifting off into sleep for the first time since Dorian had gone missing that he could have hated him—Templars had done this to him, after all, and even though he’d left the Order, he could have been lumped in with them, but something had kept him from being seen as just as evil. The idea scared him enough that he ended up staying awake well into the night, only pretending to be asleep when the healers had tried to run him out, leaving the Inquisitor to insist it was for the best to keep a Templar, even a _former_ one, at hand until the demon the prisoners had insisted was about could be found and killed.

  


Barely a day after the bulk of the Inquisition’s forces had returned to Skyhold, the healers had consented to allow someone to knife out the remainder of his eyes in an effort to repair at least part of the damage that’d been done to him, and no amount of arguing had managed to convince the Inquisitor that it was someone else’s responsibility to shoulder the blame if it didn’t work—she wouldn’t hear of it. Dorian had agreed to let them put him to sleep, more to keep him from fidgeting and potentially causing worse damage than any concern it would hurt him more, if only because he assured them nothing they could do would hurt him anymore. It took nearly an hour to cut away enough that they were sure all the potion-scarred tissue was gone, more than six to ensure they’d swabbed every possible surface with elfroot to start it healing and be sure they hadn’t missed a spot, and three days of forcing him to stay in bed before they could peel away the bandages for good. The moment of truth was fairly anticlimactic, as far as magic went, but broad, misshapen blurs of what might have been color had been a start, and that meant there was a chance he could be put properly back to rights eventually; that had been worth Skyhold’s weight in gold to practically everyone.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said as he held the door open for the Inquisitor on the way out of the war room after everyone else had left, who looked puzzled for a moment before she realized what he meant.

“It’s fine, Cullen, I promise. You had a reason to be more worried than everyone else was.”

“I should never have held you responsible for his capture. The entire party would have been lost if you’d attempted to retrieve him without the soldiers, and then where would we be?”

“What do you want from me, Cullen—a reprimand?” He said nothing, but the Inquisitor could see it in his eyes that yes, that was exactly what he wanted for his behavior, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him. “Maker’s breath,” she tried for diplomatic, but only managed to sound exhausted, “I’m not going to reprimand you for caring about someone.”

“B—”

She’d had enough. “Listen here, you mongrel dog-l—SIT DOWN!” Cullen had started to object, only to sit quickly before either of them remembered there were no chairs in the war room. “ _You_ are the reason our siege of Suledin Keep was successful. All those soldiers who came with us? Raw recruits when they set foot in Skyhold, and _you_ made them strong enough to break down the forces, because Maker knows I didn’t have anything to do with teaching them which direction the pointy bit of the sword goes, it’s not made of lightning. If it weren’t for you – yes, _you_ , not me that lost him in the first damn place – Dorian would still be in their little dungeon, being tortured or raped or Maker _knows_ what else a bunch of pompous Orlesians and the demon we _still haven’t found_ (and so help me, I’m going to light a fire under Solas’ ass, because it can’t have just vanished without a damn trace!) could do to him.

“Now, _get the hell up_ and go kiss your boyfriend, because so help me, if I see you out of your quarters for anything that doesn’t require a hundred Templars, two lakes full of lyrium, and a priest, I’m going to hurl you off the battlements!” She stood there, catching her breath from all the shouting, while Cullen continued to sit, dumbstruck. “ _ **GO!**_ ” He was up and scrambling away like a scolded child before she even finished the word.

It was only then she saw that neither Josephine nor Leliana had left before them. “Well ladies,” she said, making some attempt to regain even a slight bit of the dignity shouting at someone who was fully three times her size as he sat on the floor had cost her, “can I buy the two of you a drink?”

  


Cullen slowed from a jog to a more normal walking speed before he stepped through the doors into the main hall, waiting for the magical fire under his ass that never came and deciding, almost the second he was past the doors, to head to Dorian’s quarters rather than his own. He tried to ignore the feeling in his gut that people were judging him for something – though really, he couldn’t say he blamed them, since the same everyone who knew he was a Templar also knew that Templars had been the reason one of their own had been tortured nearly to death – as he headed for the library, his eyes all but glued to the door as he knocked. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have knocked simply as a courtesy, then opened the door and entered without waiting for an acknowledgement he knew he wouldn’t get, but the healers had said it would be good for him to walk a little bit when he thought he was up to it both to keep the muscles in his legs from atrophying and the scar tissue from building up too thick, so he knocked and waited, though the shuffling he heard from inside the room made him wish he hadn’t.

Dorian looked better than he had the first time he’d seen him after his rescue, even though it’d only been a few days since his healing had begun; there was still scarring around his eyes that no one had known what to do about, because much of it had scarred nearly down to the bone, and no one was sure cutting away what little skin was still there would stop his eyes from trying to heal any further, so they had left it be until they could be sure. His legs had been healing the best of all, since elfroot worked wonderfully on sword wounds, and none of the people torturing him had thought to drip the potion into those wounds as well; he still leaned heavily on both his staff and the door frame when he opened it for Cullen, but save for a limp that may become permanent from how close the swords had been to his ankles, his legs were expected to heal completely.

“Thought you could use the company,” Cullen said with a bit of a smile, relieved when Dorian smiled back at him and shuffled out of the way enough he could step past him and close the door behind them. He debated on whether or not to let Dorian walk back to his bed, deciding against it and scooped him up instead, though the brief moment of panic he saw cross Dorian’s face when his feet left the ground made him feel bad. “Sorry,” he mumbled, embarrassed, “thought you might have had enough walking for the day.”

He smiled at him and shrugged his shoulders, scooting over enough that he could pat the mattress beside him and wait patiently while Cullen removed his armor, all of it close enough at hand that he could roll out of bed and back into it without even needing to properly wake – and Dorian had watched him do exactly that, following an incident where a guard on watch who hadn’t thought it important to mention he was a mage had been possessed while on duty – before he sat beside him, reclined against the truly insane number of pillows Dorian always insisted on keeping so he could drape an arm around his waist. He sat there, his head resting on Cullen’s shoulder, until long after he’d fallen asleep again.


	2. A Simple Act Of Kindness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** mentions of child abuse  
>  **Pairings:** N/A  
>  **Prompt:** [Gen - Cole + Inquisitor, Pain](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/10859.html?thread=45822827#t45822827)
> 
> No sex in this one, it's just sad. That seems to be a trend with me.

“Cold,” everyone had long since learned to tune out much of Cole’s ranting, but when he stopped at just one word, much of the group found themselves curious. Could spirits actually be cold, even though it was still miserably hot with the blazing desert sun only just gone down? “Cold, and dark, and so much rain, shouldn’t have been away from camp, shouldn’t have been so close to the human camp with the bad people in their blood-stained armor.”

Of course he wasn’t cold. Everyone tuned him out then – everyone except for the Inquisitor, who sat hunched in on himself like he wanted to clap his hands over his ears, but didn’t. “They laughed about it. Laughed and joked and kicked the little pile of blankets –”

“ _Cole_ ,” there was a definite threat in the elf’s voice, but Cole didn’t seem to notice it. Everyone was listening now.

“– until it cried, just a little boy under it wishing he was anywhere but with those men. The angry woman with the sword –”

“So help me, boy, if you don’t –”

“– he cried _so much_ …”

“SHUT UP!” the Inquisitor shouted, and before anyone could move to stop him, he’d dove across the fire and had his hands around Cole’s throat, fighting to keep hold of him as Bull, Cassandra and even Solas fought to pry his fingers loose. He was crying by the time they got him to let go, but Cole (despite the bruising around his neck) still seemed focused on whatever he was feeling. “How _dare_ you…”

“They would have killed him anyways, slow and so much pain and maybe worse before he died. The arrow was a kindness.”

“Perhaps you should stop talking, Cole,” Solas mumbled, his eyes narrowed at the Inquisitor where Bull and Cassandra still kept their grip on him, though there didn’t seem to be anymore fight in him.

“He was just a baby, and all you have to say is it was a kindness? My little girl was older than he was…”

“He thanked you, before it went dark; the kind forest spirit that the Maker sent to save him. The darkspawn weren’t nice to them after you ran away. The talking one made sure.”

“I know,” he sighed, “I was watching.”


End file.
